Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that the Fed might cut interest rates yet again next month because of continuing trouble in the credit and financial markets and a bleak economic outlook.

“Unsure how to evaluate new financial instruments, the rating agency staff, according to this view, accepted statistical models cooked up by Wall Street geniuses,” The Wall Street Journal writes, quoting one view on how risky mortgage securities came to be rated as safe. Ratings agencies do not actually investigate the securities they rate: they rely on information issued by the sellers.

UBS shares traded lower Friday after it was revealed it might write down $18 billion in 2008 in addition to the $18 billion it lost in 2007. The Swiss bank has sustained some of the worst losses in the sub-prime meltdown.

“There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law,” a senior Justice Department official said. This is the first public statement by the department suggesting the practice might be illegal.

The Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite due to crash land on Earth. The operation may have political ramifications as the United States criticized China when it tested anti-satellite technology on one of its own satellites last year.

President George W. Bush defended waterboarding in a BBC interview, saying the practice, which simulates drowning, has helped save lives. Bush has suggested he may veto a proposal that would make waterboarding illegal.

On March 2, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make his first trip as president to neighboring Iraq. The two countries fought a war against each other in the 1980s, but relations improved significantly after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled by U.S. forces.

Syria’s participation at the Annapolis summit last November was cause for optimism, but the assassination of Imad Mugniyah, Lebanon’s political deadlock and new U.S. sanctions against Syria have reduced the chances of a peaceful resolution to the Middle East’s conflicts, writes Lee Hudson Teslik for the Council on Foreign Relations.